I don't know if you wanted to try this but, the trait "Dark Armor" in death magic gives you a whopping 400 armor while channeling, which would affect "Life Siphon" for MH Dagger and "Life Transfer" in death shroud. Both of those skills technically heal you throughout the duration, so I think that would have some good synergy - gain a bunch of armor to tank some damage whilst healing at the same time. I dont know.. just a thought

Necro can tank, but I'd leave it to classes with active blocks or blinds. My team relies on me to revive anyone that goes down. Even if I get targeted while rezzing I can take a few hits and then escape in Death Shroud.

I wouldn't use that heal- the cooldown is way longer than the alternative.
Also- no Well of Suffering? If you are trying to tank no allies will be close enough to you to enjoy the effects of Well of Power. Besides yourself I suppose. Well of Corruption only is useful if foes have boons- study your dungeon to see if they do before using it.

I've had the most success, by far, with Minion Master as a tanky/sustain type of character. Wells are far more support-esque imho.

I'll throw this back in here because most people seem to have missed it. *Shrugs*

Arienae, on 09 September 2012 - 08:49 AM, said:

Or you can go tanky, and spec into the Death Magic and Blood Magic Trait trees. I personally prefer this set up a -lot- more. Dying is nigh impossible, both in Dungeons and in solo PvE. This is my spec for a tanky setup. Alternatively you can swap out Fetid Consumption for Death Nova, and switch the spec around a bit for the 30% Minion damage, but I found that unnecessary, as your kill speed is pretty high with a Dagger of your level. You want to stack Vitality and Toughness up as far as possible. Ignore Precision and Condition Damage entirely, and ignore Healing for the most part. Our Trait siphons aren't touched by that stat, and, frankly, it scales absolutely terribly for us. Dagger and your choice of an off hand as the primary, with a Staff as an obvious secondary. I personally slot both Primary and Secondary with Sigils of Leeching. You essentially get a 975 point heal on a 10 second CD on top of everything else.

I find going tanky synergizes with the spec moreso than going Power. Your Minions don't take from your stats, which frees you up to go whatever route you desire. However, because of extremely low Minion CDs (The only thing over 30s is the Golem at 48), and the -massive- lifesteals you gain (Each Minion transfers 79 HP to you per hit, on top of 25 per swing with the Dagger, which has a very fast attack speed. Not much at first glance, but it adds up over the course of a fight to absolutely ridiculous numbers), on top of additional Toughness via Minions and permanent Regeneration if utilizing abilities properly, the build is set up far moreso for attrition than anything else. I would also very much recommend using the +Vitality and HP/second foods, as well as the Maintenance Oil/Sharpening Stones. At my current terrible gear level, the Sharpening Stones give me a little bit underneath 200 power. And that is a -very- large amount for a single consumable.

However, if attrition is not your preferred playstyle, I would both discourage the tanky MM variant, as well as recommend taking a look at the Professions one more time to make absolute certain that the Necromancer is what you'd like to play.

Edited in; Tank for your Minions when your gear allows you to do so. Do not let them tank for you. You get infinitely more healing than they do (Including out of combat regeneration), and your survivability is far higher than theirs. Adding onto that, they heal you per hit done, add more Toughness and add an enormous amount of damage to your overall damage output, so your entire goal is to keep them alive. However, in a rough situation, they can very well take a hit or two for you, which only boosts your survivability that much more.

The Mark of Blood you create when dodging also acts in the exact same manner as the Mark of Blood from your Staff skill. This means that dodging onto an enemy effectively Bleeds them while giving you and anyone around you Regeneration. Use that to your advantage, particularly if your minions are taking damage in melee range of a monster.

Minions are also able to gain boons. To what extent, I am not fully sure. However, their damage does increase if they gain Might, and they do benefit from Swiftness and Fury. So be careful if someone is giving out a needed Protection or other Boon; Your Minions may very well soak that Boon up instead of you.

You're not tanking via Blocks or Blinds, but through a large amount of regenerative properties that add up in the long run. So it's a bit of a different take on it, but, like I stated, I've had a lot of success with it so far.

I posted a different topic asking about if dagger/dagger spec is viable in dungeons since I am having much more fun doing that compared to ranged attacks with staff. I was going to stick with wells for when I mellee or try out plague signet with epidemic but this idea of yours sounds very interesting also.

I haven't used a pet since like lvl 5 so my opinion on them means nothing really. What I like about your idea is that I'm NOT a traditional ranged pet class. I mellee/range when needed, and bring an army behind me to help. Most of my points are in blood so far with some into power that I would just move over to death for this build. I wouldn't have thought MM necros brought much to a group from reading the ability descriptions vs wells/signets but some really think they do. The opinions very greatly so they are fun to read.

So, my question to you is, did you level up with this spec you showed or is it not really viable and more just frusterating until I get more trait points(I am lvl 25)?

I posted a different topic asking about if dagger/dagger spec is viable in dungeons since I am having much more fun doing that compared to ranged attacks with staff. I was going to stick with wells for when I mellee or try out plague signet with epidemic but this idea of yours sounds very interesting also.

I haven't used a pet since like lvl 5 so my opinion on them means nothing really. What I like about your idea is that I'm NOT a traditional ranged pet class. I mellee/range when needed, and bring an army behind me to help. Most of my points are in blood so far with some into power that I would just move over to death for this build. I wouldn't have thought MM necros brought much to a group from reading the ability descriptions vs wells/signets but some really think they do. The opinions very greatly so they are fun to read.

So, my question to you is, did you level up with this spec you showed or is it not really viable and more just frusterating until I get more trait points(I am lvl 25)?

I personally leveled 1 through 80 with it, yes. The beginning levels are somewhat frustrating, mostly because the mobs go immediately for your pets, resulting in constant re-summoning, as well as not having enough Health nor Armor to effectively take the hits for your Minions at lower levels. It gets a lot better ~20, however. I'm not exactly sure why. I simply remember having to re-summon them less and less, and actually becoming extremely durable. There's some sort of sweet spot where, if played properly, the Minions have an extremely high up-time, as long as you're in the front lines with them. If you spread the damage between both them and yourself, and simply heal it back up, neither you nor the minion should be down often.

As far as Dungeons are concerned, I had a massive amount of trouble with AC Story mode at the appropriate levels for the dungeon (Ie, ~30; I actually had to swap to Well support instead of Minion Master during the initial run). Being 80 and getting scaled back down, however, I was able to use MM throughout the entirety of both Story mode and Explorable modes. I'm relatively certain this is simply because by the time you're being scaled down, you have Traits that actually improve Minions by a substantial amount; So although they are being scaled down with you, you still benefit from these Traits that you otherwise did not have. Even with this though, there are obviously certain fights where Minions simply are not viable. Heavy AoE is an absolute nightmare if it is randomly placed, or has a high presence throughout most of the fight. If it is an effect placed on a target, however, Minions help substantially due to the fact that they are yet another entity to be targeted, particularly if they're in a different position than the rest of the group.

From personal experience, the people I tend to run with stated that it was actually far easier while running with me than without.

Edited in; The biggest downside to all of this is that, like god knows how many other Necros have stated, the Minion AI can be unbearably stupid at times. Luckily, with Toughness/Vitality as a focus point, you have enough mitigation to survive with or without them. You'll do substantially less damage without them, so you do somewhat rely on them, but you can certainly still survive without them. Particularly if you're making good use of Death Shroud swaps as well as Weapon Swaps for Sigil of Leechings.

I tried this out last night and I didn't have the best results, I just need to practice some I think. What at first made it frusterating later had me laughing. I really think the pets are all like human two year olds or labs and just get bored! If I wait too long between fights they just went and found a fight...then brought it to me. I went to a lvl 20ish area south of the human city where bandits spawn constantly to test it out. I had been there before as dagger/wells spec and had fun. With the pets though it was hairy, maybe I just need a few more lvls so I can get the good traits for them but they just kept running off and getting killed. Which would bring more mobs to me in an area with a ton of mobs running around already. Needless to say I didn't stick around long, so I went to kill mosquitos and the pets decided I wasn't killing enough mosquitos. That is when I actually thought it was funny though because the area is much easier. Thanks for the advice though, I will use it when I try again around lvl 40+. For now I think I will use wells or epidemic type build.